About Joaquín Torres-García

Joaquin Torres-Garcia came to be known for his affiliation to various modernist art movements that variously sought to combine European precedents of abstraction with South American imagery and life. At various times, he was associated with Noucentisme and Theo van Doesburg’s Neoplasticism. With fellow Uruguayan artist Rafael Pérez Barradas, Torres-Garcia developed Vibrationism, a style concerned with combined formal elements of Cubism and Futurism with urban imagery. Works made in this style had compositions based upon loose grids, then filled with linear symbols; these would become some of his best known and most influential pieces. He also developed Universalismo Constructivo (Constructive Universalism), which sought to identify a universal structural unity through abstraction. Torres-Garcia eventually founded Taller Torres-Garcia, an avant-garde school that sought to blur hierarchical distinctions between arts and crafts.